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Author
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Topic: Poison pill standard equipment on Apollo?
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Beau08
Member Posts: 159
From: Peoria, AZ United States
Registered: Aug 2011
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posted 04-12-2012 05:19 PM
   
Recently watched movie "Contact". The scene of Jodie Foster's character reviewing equipment to be included on her "mission" had a poison pill as one of the items just in case something unforeseen were to happen. They said the Apollo astronauts carried them on their missions. Is this true or just movie dramatic License? Has any astronaut confirmed or denied carrying one? |
Jim Behling
Member Posts: 1535
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010
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posted 04-12-2012 06:12 PM
Never. |
golddog
Member Posts: 210
From: australia
Registered: Feb 2008
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posted 04-12-2012 06:27 PM
Usual movie hype. Refuted by astronauts including Jim Lovell. As Lovell indicated in his book, if one wanted to commit suicide all that was necessary was to open the hatch. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 44527
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 04-12-2012 07:06 PM
Lovell stated similarly in NASA SP-350 Apollo Expeditions to the Moon: Since Apollo 13 many people have asked me, "Did you have suicide pills on board?" We didn't, and I never heard of such a thing in the eleven years I spent as an astronaut and NASA executive.I did, of course, occasionally think of the possibility that the spacecraft explosion might maroon us in an enormous orbit about the Earth — a sort of perpetual monument to the space program. But Jack Swigert, Fred Haise, and I never talked about that fate during our perilous flight. I guess we were too busy struggling for survival. |
Beau08
Member Posts: 159
From: Peoria, AZ United States
Registered: Aug 2011
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posted 04-12-2012 07:31 PM
Sounded unlikely to me too. Just seemed like an odd thing to add to a movie when it wasn't needed. The only reason I asked was that Carl Sagan played a big part in the script of the movie and maybe he knew something we didn't. I guess there would be more unpredictable scenarios if dealing with an alien life forms however. |
Rusty B
Member Posts: 239
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 04-12-2012 07:43 PM
I've never read or heard of U.S. astronauts carrying a suicide pill.Gary Powers, the pilot of the U.S. U-2 spy plane shot down in 1960 and attributed to NASA as a weather plane did carry a suicide device. The cover story about being a NASA weather flight was false. Gary Powers worked for the CIA. According to his book about the spy mission, the CIA did give him a poison dipped needle that was concealed in a hollowed out U.S. coin. |
GoesTo11
Member Posts: 1327
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 2004
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posted 04-12-2012 08:53 PM
quote:
Originally posted by golddog:
As Lovell indicated in his book, if one wanted to commit suicide all that was necessary was to open the hatch.
Indeed, in the very first paragraphs of Lost Moon (later, Apollo 13), it was made clear that the fanciful rumors of "suicide pills" were of unknown provenance, picked up by a sensationalizing press... and in turn were, uh, swallowed by much of the public. |
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 04-12-2012 09:38 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Beau08:
The only reason I asked was that Carl Sagan played a big part in the script of the movie and maybe he knew something we didn't.
I highly doubt Sagan had ANYTHING to do with the pill mention as I believe he was dead by the time the film was made anyway. Anybody from the scriptwriter to a producer could have had the line stuck in (again, for dramatic effect). The original book was about a team of scientists taking a ride on the machine, not just one person.Besides, Jim summed up the reason for not having the pill rather well in his book. Just crack open a valve manually, vent the atmosphere into space and they would be dead rather quickly (as Soyuz 11 showed about a year later). |
Fezman92
Member Posts: 1031
From: New Jersey, USA
Registered: Mar 2010
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posted 04-12-2012 09:56 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Rusty B:
Gary Powers, the pilot of the U.S. U-2 spy plane shot down in 1960 and attributed to NASA as a weather plane did carry a suicide device.
So is that how this urban legend started?
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Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 44527
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 04-12-2012 10:02 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
I highly doubt Sagan had ANYTHING to do with the pill mention as I believe he was dead by the time the film was made anyway.
Citing director Robert Zemeckis' audio commentary on the Contact DVD, Wikipedia says the scene with the cyanide pill was included in the film due to Sagan's own insistence. The scene where the NASA scientists give Arroway the "cyanide pill" caused some controversy during production and also when the film came out. Gerald D. Griffin, the film's NASA advisor, insisted that NASA has never given any astronaut a cyanide pill "just in case," and that if an astronaut truly wished to commit suicide in space, all he or she would have to do is cut off their oxygen supply.However, Carl Sagan insisted that NASA did indeed give out cyanide pills and they did it for every mission an astronaut has ever flown. Zemeckis said that because of the two radically different assertions, the truth is unknown, but he left the suicide pill scene in the movie as it seemed more suspenseful that way and it was also in line with Sagan's beliefs and vision of the film. |
stsmithva
Member Posts: 1976
From: Fairfax, VA
Registered: Feb 2007
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posted 04-12-2012 10:18 PM
Zemeckis said that because of the two radically different assertions, the truth is unknown Good grief, that's some specious logic. I know Sagan worked for/with NASA — he was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal twice. But that was for things like briefing the astronauts on what they might find the moon to be like, or working on the Voyager record and Pioneer plaque. Griffin was a flight controller and then flight director, knowledgeable of and responsible for every minute of several Apollo missions. I swim in the ocean several times a year, and I think seahorses wear little saddles. Jacques Cousteau would disagree. The truth is unknown. |
p51
Member Posts: 1680
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 04-12-2012 10:24 PM
Make no mistake, the US government HAS made suicide pills (mostly having to do with clandestine uses and probably ingested by people who didn't know they were taking one), but none were ever given to NASA astronauts.I know people who worked on "Contact," and there was some arguing on the set about that scene, but I can't name names. It made for good drama, so I understood why it was in the movie (as pointed out already, the film scenario wouldn't give an obvious "out" of opening a vent like Lovell mentioned in space). I personally heard Al Worden recently say, "I swear, someone asks that question almost every time I do one of these appearances," citing he'd never heard of a suicide pill other than in fiction. |
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 04-12-2012 11:32 PM
At the time of Apollo, Sagan was based out of the University of California at Berkeley and then Cambridge, MA before taking a professorship at Cornell University in the early 1970s. I am not inclined to believe a possible Sagan assertion about "poison pills" unless he was based at Langley or JSC from Apollo's early days onwards (which he was not). He would not have been in the loop on that at all if such a decision was made. |
GoesTo11
Member Posts: 1327
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 2004
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posted 04-13-2012 12:41 AM
I am generally an admirer of the late Dr. Sagan, for both his scholarship in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics, and his critical role in popularizing these sciences.However, I also don't find it at all farfetched that given his well-documented "open-mindedness" regarding what he might have called the "consciousness-raising" use of psychoactive substances, he might well have been quite receptive to the notion that astronauts in a no-win situation might avail themselves of the use of yet more pills to end it all. I don't buy any of it for a second, but I can see why Sagan might have. |
Rusty B
Member Posts: 239
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 04-13-2012 07:45 AM
Reporters have been asking this question at least as early as Apollo 8. Here's a Calgary Herald story from Dec 21, 1968 where reporters asked Deke Slayton if the Apollo 8 astronauts carried a "suicide pill, or pin, or other device". Of course Slayton answered no. (Scroll halfway down the page, left column for question and answer). |
FFrench
Member Posts: 3170
From: San Diego
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 04-13-2012 03:36 PM
Not sure if you have read Frank Borman's book "Countdown," but that gives you one, highly unflattering, account of what one astronaut thought of Sagan, and what Sagan thought of at least astronaut, during the time of Apollo. "I'll never forget or forgive him," Borman relates, and gives a highly scathing account of Sagan's understanding of the human space program. |
bwhite1976
Member Posts: 286
From: Belleville, IL
Registered: Jun 2011
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posted 04-21-2012 09:52 PM
I have always wondered about that incident at Cornell that Borman references in his book. Why in the heck, did Borman not see that he was being set up for a rather hostile evening? As I recall in the book Sagan invited him to his home and Borman spent the night being questioned about Vietnam by a bunch of college kids as if he were responsible. Sagan certainly used him, and after reading Countdown it does change ones perspective of Sagan. |
Dirk
Member Posts: 962
From: Belgium
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted 08-16-2020 05:39 PM
On Facebook, a woman who knew Jack Swigert very well said this recently about the rumor about suicide pills: A question I didn't ask, but wanted to, was concerning "suicide pills," if they had them on board, always a rumor, but I know that would not have been an option for Jack, as he had a strong Catholic faith and for him it would have been a mortal sin. I did ask if he carried those well-worn one-page flight authorization US GOV issue, and he said yes they were carried on the flight. |
David C
Member Posts: 1148
From: Lausanne
Registered: Apr 2012
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posted 08-17-2020 03:33 AM
quote:
Originally posted by stsmithva:
Zemeckis said that because of the two radically different assertions, the truth is unknown I swim in the ocean several times a year, and I think seahorses wear little saddles. Jacques Cousteau would disagree. The truth is unknown.
Beautiful. Sagan was a brilliant man, but why anyone would even consider using him as an expert on the operational details of a human spaceflight mission befuddles me. |
moorouge
Member Posts: 2479
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 08-18-2020 01:09 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
...as Soyuz 11 showed about a year later.
Perhaps not. There were unconfirmed reports at the time that one of the cosmonauts still had a spark of life in him on landing but that attempts to revive him failed. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 44527
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 08-18-2020 01:42 PM
I would caution against citing "unconfirmed reports," especially when authoritative sources are now available based on thorough research.According to Asif Siddiqi's "Challenge to Apollo," while there were efforts to revive the Soyuz 11 crew, all three crew members were found lifeless upon opening the hatch. |
Space Cadet Carl
Member Posts: 237
From: Lake Orion, Michigan
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 08-19-2020 05:26 AM
quote:
Originally posted by David C:
...why anyone would even consider using him as an expert on the operational details of a human spaceflight mission befuddles me.
Those of us who were around in 1980 remember how the television series Cosmos elevated Sagan to "rock star" status. I could see where Hollywood might have leaned on Sagan in a few areas in which he may not have been the best source. |
Lou Chinal
Member Posts: 1344
From: Staten Island, NY
Registered: Jun 2007
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posted 08-23-2020 05:33 PM
Dramatic license. |
dwager
Member Posts: 72
From: Augusta, GA
Registered: Sep 2014
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posted 08-27-2020 06:40 AM
I default to the fact that the film industry rarely cares for truth when a sensationalized — or outright falsified — story can be told in order to make money. I remember speaking with Fred Haise in 2014 and asking him about the portrayal of Jack Swigert in "Apollo 13." I thought it was egregious that Ron Howard made a CSM expert look like an immature idiot in the movie, especially because Swigert was not alive to defend himself. He agreed that they made him look bad and said, "You know he helped write procedures for the CSM and, as back-up, Swigert was probably sharper and more spun-up/ready for the mission than the prime crew because he was training longer closer to launch." Also, that argument on-board during the crisis never took place. Howard threw that in there because he read the mission logs and felt everything was too professional, and too dull! I was glad that "Apollo 13" popularized a story that deserved to be told, but I think it's inexcusable to trash a dead man's character in the process. But hey, it's the Hollywood way, right? |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3207
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 08-27-2020 07:46 AM
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." |
perineau
Member Posts: 281
From: FRANCE
Registered: Jul 2007
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posted 08-27-2020 11:44 AM
The irony to me is that "Apollo 13" was an excellent film although some of my favorite scenes actually never took place! |
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